People wait in a line at the Adams-Butzel Recreational Complex on Lyndon Street in Detroit August 19 for help with flood damage. / Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

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A phone bank set up by Macomb County to help residents fill out a damage assessment report form from last week’s flooding was itself flooded with hundreds of calls Thursday after unauthorized robocalls encouraged people to call the number, Executive Mark Hackel said Friday.

Hackel said more robocalls went out Friday. Most of the robocalls were in Warren and Center Line, with a few in Clinton Township and St. Clair Shores.

He said neither he nor Vicki Wolber, the county’s director of emergency management and communications, authorized the robocalls.

One of the calls indicated the caller was Assistant Prosecutor Suzanne Faunce, chief of the senior protection unit for the county prosecutor’s office. It relayed the phone number for those filing a claim for water damage in the recent flood. It also indicated that residents approached by a contractor during their rebuild are urged to call the home builders association or Better Business Bureau to check if the contractor is licensed and insured.

The call urged listeners to beware of scam artists and that if they are senior citizens who believe someone has taken advantage of them, they can call Faunce at the prosecutor’s office.

Hackel said late Friday that it was his understanding that the prosecutor’s office put out the call. He said he asked for the robocalls to be discontinued. He said it was his understanding that the calls would not continue.

“It did cause us more harm than it did good,” Hackel said, adding that people were upset or confused by the call, or believed there was more motivation behind it.

Faunce is running for district judge in Warren.

In a statement late Friday, she said: “Our first priority is to protect our seniors. We're receiving calls from concerned flood victims who are getting bombarded with solicitations from sham contractors. Our office undertook this initiative to inform and warn affected citizens in this hour of need. We can’t repeat it enough: households rebuilding from this disaster need to be especially vigilant about the credentials and legitimacy of those they entrust with their money.”

Prosecutor Eric Smith said he directed that the call be made and asked Faunce to make it in her capacity as chief of his Senior Protection Unit.

Hackel said residents flooded the phone bank with calls asking why the county was calling them or saying they already filled out the form.

He said the phone bank was handled by volunteers, but some county workers with down time pitched in to answer calls when volunteers were not available.

The bank had 12 people at one point, but whittled down to four to six people as the information for the form was being gathered in other ways, such as by e-mail.

Sometime after 1 p.m. or 1:30 p.m. Thursday, the county phone lines lit up after the robocalls went out, Hackel said. He said people manned the phone bank until 9 p.m. Thursday in case someone needed to fill out a form, costing some overtime.

Apparently, another round of robocalls went out Friday, with calls again coming into the phone bank about 11:30 a.m.

“I don’t know what the intended purpose of this (is),” Hackel said. “If it was someone’s way of helping, they need to clear that with me or Vicki, and that was not done.”

Residents who experienced damage from last week’s flooding and have not filled out a damage assessment report form may do so by calling 586-493-6767 from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays, or by going online to oemc.macombgov.org.